Stop Overindulging

This is episode 227 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast, where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now, your host, executive coach and life strategist, Kari Schneider.

Welcome back to the Empowered Team Podcast.

I am so lucky to be recording.

This from Mexico right now. And it's the perfect place for this.

Topic of how to stop overindulging.

Because I can certainly say it's easy to overindulge in an incredible place like this.

So how to stop overindulging? I bet that you have overindulged maybe.

A lot in your life and maybe as recently as today. So let's take a look at overindulge. First. It is the meaning. It's a verb, have too much of something enjoyable, especially food or drink. And another meaning is to gratify the wishes of someone to an excessive extent. So, example, his mother had overindulged him. So that's the definition. But the question becomes, what is too much or an excessive extent? So when we look at the definition, have too much of something enjoyable, well, what's too much? Your too much is probably different than my too much. What's an excessive extent? That is the subjective part of this. It's very, very subjective. So I'm sure that you have decided at some point that whatever you were eating, drinking, doing was too much, that perhaps you were settling into enjoying it too much or partaking in it too much. Or maybe it wasn't even. Didn't even feel like it was under your control. I know at one point that I was feeling like I had so much work to do. I felt overwhelmed. And I was working all week. And then Saturday and Sunday would roll around and I still had more work to do on Saturday, but I didn't get it done because I was running around with kids sports. And then Sunday I'd have more work to do to prep for the following. And by the time Sunday came along, I was so grumpy because I had this work to do. And I would literally watch my kids go outside to play and feel like they were getting to do all this outdoor stuff and I wasn't getting to.

Well, I don't know who made that.

Rule other than myself that I was the one who decided that I had to keep working. And ultimately I was indulging in working too much. And it sounds counterintuitive, but that's what was happening. I was indulging in working too much. I was the boss of me. No one else was Deciding what I had to do or didn't do, I was deciding that. And so work or it doesn't just have to be alcohol, it doesn't just have to be food or sweets. Overindulgence can happen in work and we do it all the time by telling ourselves the lie and that we have to get this done or we must work this much. And yes, there's deadlines, yes, there are demands, yes, there are things that need to get done in order to keep the ball rolling in whatever the business is or whatever the workplace scenario is. However, the way we come about it can turn into a scenario where we are addicted to doing the work. We feel compelled to do the work so much so that it is a detriment to the quality of our life. And that's what happens with an overindulgence. Another example, if it's not working, is my story of chocolate covered almonds. I didn't have chocolate covered almonds when I was growing up. I think I discovered it sometime in high school or university. And then it always seemed like the perfect thing to bring or put out for guests or a gathering. And yet they never made it to the guest or the gathering because I would have eaten them ahead of time. I don't know about you, but you've probably got something like I did with the chocolate covered almonds that you just have zero control over. And chocolate covered almonds was that for me. And I would find that I wanted to have some, but I didn't want to have 20 of them. I wanted to have a small handful of them or maybe eight of them. I didn't want to have so many that I felt really gross. And that's the point where you realize that you've overindulged. You don't realize you've overindulged during the overindulgence. You realize you overindulged after, when you feel like crap, after you've worked five days straight of 12 or 14 hour days, after you've eaten 25 chocolate covered almonds and you feel like you want to throw up after you've drinking that 10th glass of wine and you feel like you can't stand up. So it's only you. This is subjective. It is only you who decides what is too much. No one else decides. It's only you. But this is the thing, as long as you decide. What happens to so many of us is that we're going through life not deciding what is too much. And we keep going and consuming things, whether it's participating in work Consuming foods, consuming alcohol, and continuing to do so without deciding how much you really want. You might be consuming the amount that your friend is. You might be consuming the amount that you used to. You might be consuming the amount that you think is okay, but then your body tells you later that it's not. And so this is what happens with overindulgence. And it can be in anything. It can be in even the healthiest things, like exercise or drinking tea. If we are consuming that too much to indulge ourselves from something that we're avoiding, then that still becomes unhealthy, even if the action itself is a healthy action. We can overindulge in running, overindulge in alcohol, overindulge in the healthiest greens. So this is where you can decide what you are overindulging in. Most of us have something. If you're doing something that you don't want to do, so literally you're doing something against your own will, then it's an overindulgence. If you choose, or I choose to indulge in something, let's say it's a glass of wine, let's say it's a piece of cake, let's say it's working for two hours on a Saturday morning. If we choose to indulge in something that's out of the norm or doing something that we really want to do, that is an indulgence. But when we're doing it more than we really want to, that's when it becomes the overindulgence. So this is for the person who goes out for the drink, because they just want to go out for a drink and chat with someone, they intend to have one drink. Lo and behold, after a couple hours, they've had three or four drinks and they regret it later. That's the example of the overindulgence. But the indulgence would have been the one drink that would have been the thing that they wanted to indulge in and visit with someone. So how do we stop the overindulgence part? Because clearly the aftermath is not something that we want. Clearly, when the overindulgence happens, we don't want that. Otherwise we wouldn't consider it an overindulgence. So how do we stop this? I've created.

Five steps. I had to count them five steps.

And the reason these steps are so critical and that one of them cannot be missed is because there's more than just overeating or over drinking or overworking going on. There's some things that we're typically Unconscious to some things that are happening subconsciously that we're not acknowledging. And that's why we keep overindulging. Instead of having the overindulgence happen once, learn from it and then move on and have it never happen again. How many times did we over drink or overeat and then ultimately do it again? Even though that one time, that first time, or that second time, we knew.

How bad it was and we promised.

Ourselves we'd never do that again because.

It felt so bad.

So this is where the subconscious comes in. So first of all, you're on top of it right now just by listening.

To this concept, the concept of overindulgence.

And we've done the first step already by distinguishing. So the first step is to distinguish, distinguishing between a chosen indulgence, choosing to.

Have that one drink, choosing to have the piece of cake, choosing to work for an hour on a Saturday.

So distinguish between the chosen indulgence and an overindulgence, doing way more or consuming way more than you intended to, so much more that you regret it after the fact. So distinguish between your indulgences and the overindulgence.

That's step one. And step two is identifying.

Identify the feeling that triggers the urge.

To want to have more.

So identify the feeling that triggers the.

Urge to want to have more.

So for instance, you may have some anxiety that you didn't work enough this.

Week and then you end up working more on the weekend. Even though you know that you want some time off, you might have some sadness. And when you're feeling that sadness, then you tend to reach for the alcohol or reach for the sweets or perhaps it's fatigue. I know that for those chocolate covered almonds, man, did I ever want them more. Whenever I was tired or the end of a week or a Friday and feeling really wiped. Maybe it's overwhelm or pressure or anger, but typically there is an emotional state before you take that action of overindulging. So that's number two. So identify the feeling, the situation, identify what those parameters are around that scenario. And then third step, remove the temptation. So removing the temptation might not just be the third thing, meaning the chocolate covered almonds, the work, or the alcohol as examples. Removing the temptation might be an environment. It might be people, it might be the chocolate covered almonds themselves. So removing the temptation. This is a zone where you have to identify what is the real temptation. Is the temptation your friends, that you really don't want the alcohol, but the temptation is wanting to do what they're doing. And is that the temptation or is the temptation the thing itself? For instance, the work or the alcohol? Maybe you really crave a glass of wine after every day of work and you don't want to have a glass of wine or three after every day of work. So remove the temptation. This is one of the ways that I really cut down on those chocolate covered almonds. I realized that I couldn't have them in the house because they were so tempting for me that I did not have the self control to not consume them. And really, this is what this podcast is about. This is self mastery. It's self mastery for leaders, it's self mastery for us in our day to day lives. So if you know that you don't have the willpower around those people, around that certain thing, that then remove yourself from it. This even applies to the overworking scenario. So take yourself away on a one week, two week vacation or more in order to remove the temptation of continually falling into the indulgence of working at every hour. That's how you can remove the indulgence in that scenario. So remove the temptation.

Consider that in your scenario of overindulgence.

It might not be what you think it is. The temptation might not be the chips. Maybe the temptation is the time of day. So you're not going to remove the time of day, but you're going to replace something else there so that you're not overindulging in the chips. So that's number three, number four. And this part is, I think, the hardest part for most people. It's the hardest part for my clients. It's feeling, feeling the thing that you typically had around that indulgence. So if you were feeling sadness and wanted to go for the chips or the popcorn or the chocolate covered almonds, then feel the sadness. Just feel it instead of feeling it and looking to take an action.

Consuming something that tastes good or feels.

Good in a certain way, that takes away the sadness. That's what we're typically trying to do when we overindulge. We're trying not to feel a feeling by doing the thing we're overindulging in. That is typically why we overindulge. We don't want to feel the anxiety, we don't want to feel the sadness, we don't want to feel the uncertainty, we don't want to feel the pressure, the anger, the overwhelm, whatever the emotion is. So this is where we literally just feel it instead of drinking it away, working it away, and whatever we are doing it away. So feel the feeling. And it might be kind of crummy, but the more accustomed we become at feeling the thing, then the more powerful, the more self mastery, the more control we have over our minds and our actions. So feel the thing without having to indulge it away. And lastly is decide. So this is the fifth step. This one is so powerful because it uses the most intelligent, advanced portion of our brains. We decide what to think and how to behave in that same situation ahead of time. We decide who we're going to be in that situation where we typically overindulge. We plan some contingencies so that we know what we want to do in that same scenario. We remove the temptation. We've already done that. And we decide that if those scenarios temptations or we're susceptible again, if that comes up, what we do, do we have a buddy that we rely on? Do we get support? Do we remove ourselves from the situation and not have a drink with a friend at all because we know we can't just have one? What is the thing that we're going to do? How are we going to think? How are we going to behave? What are we going to change about ourselves in that situation? Decide ahead of time. That's using our prefrontal cortex. That's the part of our brain that can literally see our future selves and plan for our future selves. Okay, Those are the five steps. Distinguish between a regular indulgence and what we're overindulging in. Identify. Identify the feeling that tends to trigger the overindulgence. It might not be just one feeling, but typically there is pattern there and a similar way of being or feeling that happens in the scenario. Then remove the temptation. Typically we need to remove the temptation initially when we're looking to change overindulging. If we do that in the beginning, it helps our scenario. I don't have any temptation around chocolate covered almonds anymore. I can have a big jar of them in my pantry and not worry about overindulging in them. But initially I couldn't have them in my house. So if you're looking to change an overindulging pattern in the beginning, you typically have to get away from the pattern, get away from the temptation and break that pattern. So that's why removing and fourth feel. Feel the thing that you're afraid to feel. Feel the thing that we are numbing with the overindulging, numbing with the work, numbing with the tv, Netflix, chocolate covered almonds, alcohol. Feel the feeling that you don't want to feel. And lastly, decide. Decide ahead of time. Decide exactly what you're going to do, exactly how you're going to behave, and.

Then set yourself up for success so that you put in place whatever is going to support what your decision is. So that's the fifth step. Now what are you gonna do? What do you want to stop overindulging in. Because when you do, this is what it leads to. It leads to the most incredible feeling of personal power. When you've overcome something that's been controlling you, that that is where it's at, that grows you. That's you stepping into what you truly want instead of succumbing to something that you really don't want. This is your personal power and it really is self mastery. If you need some support in any sweet overindulgences, we are doing a sweet free march and we will have a week long challenge that you can join us in. We'll do the challenge of no sweets for an entire week. I personally will be doing it for a whole month. But you can join us for a whole week of zero sweets. No added sugar, no none of the stuff fruit is allowed. So if you are concerned about that fruit is allowed and join us in that. We will pop a link in the show notes and we would love to have you. We'll support you. This is where we like to be accountable with each other and support what we really want. Support our future selves. Have a fantastic rest of your day. Go out there and indulge, but don't overindulge. You'll regret it later. Have a blast.

If you enjoy listening to the Empowered Team podcast, you'll love being on the Empowered Team. The Empowered Team is our group coaching and accountability program where we provide the tools, skills and community for you to grow your self mastery as a leader and optimize your results alongside other leaders. The Empowered Team runs year round to learn more about our leadership consulting for business and our Empowered Team Group coaching. Head to www.TheEmpowered.ca empowered learn more. That's www.TheEmpowered.Ca empowered-learn-more. We can't wait for you to join us. Let's go.